THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates,
Dorking,

16th December, 1948

Dear Irving

This letter is already out of date owing to our telephone talk – so read no further.¹
I should like it very much² and I feel sure the O.U.P.³ will agree.
The only trouble to my mind is – will it prevent me later on writing an “Antartic Symphony”⁴ using the same themes, which I have slowly revolving in my mind, though it may never come to anything?
I will do my best  to come to the H.M.V. on December 30th. 10 o’clock, I presume? But you do not say.
I do hope you will be better by then or even before.
Yrs

RVW

Ernest Irving, Esq.,
Ealing Studios
Ealing, W.

1.  This line added in manuscript.
2.  Irving appears to have suggested that a suite should be made of the music of Scott of the Antarctic.
3. Oxford University Press
4.  sic. – subsequently VW varies between Antartic Symphony and Sinfonia Antarctica, until eventually the correct Sinfonia Antartica was adopted. See VWL2415 and VWL2562.